New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

So I have received a message that I now will have usage limits starting in April and that I have 526 accounts which is over the new 250 usage limit. First let me say that this is unacceptable. I run my business my way. I don't run my business based upon QB limitations. When I signed up with QB there were never any usage limits so this recent change is clearly an attempt to force me into "upgrading". The problem is, I am an attorney and I have to have a segregated trust account for each of my clients, therefore, my trust account has many sub accounts each representing a different client. I have strict standards to uphold with the state bar association in which I have to be able to show a detailed account list at any time. How am I supposed to do that when you have now imposed these usage limits? If I make the accounts that have a zero balance inactive, will I still be able to show the bar association an entire list of sub accounts in my trust account? Is it time for me to change to another accounting software that works the way I want it to work?

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

Please check out the post there for more information on Usage Limits and how they work within QuickBooks. Regarding your question on Inactive accounts, they will display in certain Online reports with (Deleted) next to the account name.

Don't hesitate to let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns, I'm always happy to lend a hand. Thanks for reaching out, I look forward to hearing from you again.

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

I worked on a QBO file for a law firm, where they used the AR sub-ledger to keep track of client retainer accounts. Retainers received were posted using Receive Payments creating a credit which meant that most clients had negative AR balances, to which invoices were applied. This is not technically correct (negative AR), but it worked in terms of keeping separate ledger pages for each client. A reversing JE had to be done at year end, and reversed the next day, to temp move the total negative AR balance to the liability, so the b/sheet was accurate at year end.

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

I've never had an issue creating an Other Current Liabilities/Trust account for each client as a sub account of my Client Trust account. What I'm not clear on is whether I can make an account inactive and still be able to show the bar a full list of my trust accounts with all historical transactions if needed. If so, I will just make all the zero balance accounts inactive to meet the usage limit rather than upgrading.

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

When inactivating an account in your chart of accounts the historical transactions will still show. However, doing this won't decrease your data usage. This is because inactivating an account doesn't erase your transactions and they remain part of your company data. To learn more about this process, please refer to this article: How to delete an account or restore a deleted account.

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

Thank you for your call out. I already updated my answer above to avoid confusions to the customer.

Hello, PeteMc.

Let me share some information about the article that you've read about the Grandfathered option in QuickBooks.

I've verified from our developers about the unlimited plan that you've mentioned and its now been updated. We've built a bigger, better QuickBooks for business like yours. We know that there are customers that are outgrowing QBO today, and our goal is to make sure that those customers are in a fully featured product that meets their needs. We want to make sure that we have the right product for our customer.

I will do my part and raise this concern to our developers so this will be taken care of. Also, you can visit our QuickBooks Online Blog to be updated about our latest happenings. Through this, you're able to get the newest news, features, and updates about QuickBooks Online and what our Product Care Team is working on.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to help. Thanks for coming to the Community, wishing you continued success.

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

It appears that if you do not change the number of Accounts or Classes you have, then you can continue using your data without upgrading.

Major downside is that you can only go down and you CANNOT ADD any new Accounts or Classes until you get below the limits. So if you don't expect the need to increase, you're fine. Otherwise you'll need to either pay for an upgrade or strongly consider moving to QB Desktop (or some other platform).

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

let me help with this part: "The problem is, I am an attorney and I have to have a segregated trust account for each of my clients"

You never needed this at all. You need one Liability account. Everything you do, you use a Customer Transaction for it, to flow the data in and out of that acccount.

Set up Trust Retainer Liability. Set up Trust Bank. Make a Service or other charge item linked to Trust Liability. Use that on a Sales Receipt for Client, when you get a retainer. Make more items, if you want other "reasons" for tracking and reporting purposes, such as Settlement Funds Received, Retainer Received, Retainer Returned, Retainer Applied, etc.

They all link to that One Liability account. They all get sent to the Trust Bank.

Now, when you invoice for Advanced Costs + fees income, you need to show it is Paid by Trust funds. So, we Write Check from the Trust Bank to the firm as Payee. On this check, list all the allocation of funds being removed from Trust Bank to pay client invoices. That means using the "liability" item(s) and the amounts on the lines in the items section and Job Tracking which client this belongs to; these are not Billable.

Now, treat that Trust Bank check as having Arrived from the Trust Department. Each line you put there is a Receive Payment against that client's open charges.

If you need to return funds, from Trust Bank, that is payee = client, and still listing one of your Retainer Liability item(s) here as the Detail for giving them funds from Trust Bank.

Every time you do this, Trust Bank and Trust Liability increase and decrease Together, meeting IOLTA requirements.

"I have strict standards to uphold with the state bar association in which I have to be able to show a detailed account list at any time."

And now you make some custom reports. Filter on the Liability account and set that to Total by Customer Name. You will see when a Client is at 0, and this report also helps you avoid Over-crediting.

Once a client is at 0, you will Reconcile that Liability account. You use only the Ending Balance of 0, because you are Only marking as cleared the activity for that name where you confirmed their activities end at 0. That means you have Two Custom reports: one is titled All Activity and one is titled Current Balances, filtered on Cleared Status = No.

"will I still be able to show the bar association an entire list"

Yes, with the help of one of my students, the Montanan Justice League, and one of the other All Stars here, LauraD, we developed these processes.

You never needed that micro-management.

I will provide some attachments, including where you see the Out of Balance Condition for $261 for "Amy's Bird Sanctuary" done as Credit Memo to be applied to the invoice, in error; that applies the liability but not Trust Bank.

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

I'm here to provide some information about the usage limit and guide you in the right direction to ensure that your concern will be addressed accurately.

If you've exceeded the QuickBooks Online usage limits, you can consider inactivating some of the unused entities in your QuickBooks. Once you inactive an item/account this won't count towards your limit total. To learn more about this process, here are some helpful articles that you can refer to:

On the other hand, technology is now rapidly changing, and we want our customers to be updated with technology advancement. This why QuickBooks Advance was created. As I've mentioned above, QuickBooks aims to make sure that customers are in a fully featured product that meets their needs.

Don't hesitate to reach back out to me if I can be of additional assistance. I'll be around to help you out.

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

When I purchased my QBO Plus subscription a few years ago, the product featured unlimited classes, and unlimited charts of accounts. In the last few days a new tab appeared in the product with a warning that I’ve exceeded the number of allowed classes and accounts, and I could upgrade to the new Advanced subscription in order regain the features I used with my Plus subscription. The new Advanced subscription costs $150, from the $60 I’m paying now, that is a huge jump.

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

I know you were told you will have unlimited classes and Chart of Accounts when you purchased your subscription. However, due to the recent updates we rolled out, this is no longer the case.

The ways to reduce the limit is to remove the accounts and classes that are no longer in used, or to upgrade to QBO Advanced. We don’t have any intentions to have you change your business structure or delete any active files.

I suggest getting in touch with our QuickBooks Team to discuss further options on how you can go about in keeping the features that you previously had. Here are the steps to contact a specialist:

New Usage Limits - Attorney Not Happy

Please take a look at this posting by Intuit, below, there is not much different in the new Advanced subscription, they just rolled the features they once offered in the Plus subscription when I first purchased it, and increased the subscription to $150/mo.

Intuit is limiting the number of items in the Chart of Accounts to 250